A Temporary Life

David Storey

ISBN 10: 0713905050 / ISBN 13: 9780713905052

Published by Allen Lane, London England, 1973

About this Item

Hardback. First Edition. After seven plays and four novels, all widely acclaimed, he now presents a first-person account of certain incidents in the temporary life of Colin Freestone, a one-time professional boxer turned artist. On the occasion of his wife's breakdown, Freestone returns with her to her home town in the norther and takes a job in the local art school. Here we meet a whole gallery of startlingly relaised teachers and students, presided over by David Storey's most comic creation to date, R. N. 'Skipper' Wilcox, a man who equates food with art, art with the past, and the past with his own idiosyncratic passiosn and vices. Theen there are the Newmans who have arrived, ostensibly, to transform the town: Elizabeth, the wife, on the lookout for pleasure; Rebecca, the dauther, on the lookout for experience; and Neville Newman himself, a city planner, on the lookout, with his strange and menacing gang, for authority and power. Like some gigantic happening, unannounced, unrehearsed - convened perhaps, thought one is never sure, by Freestone himself - these characters, shadowed by the disturbing presene of Freestone's wife, trace out a compulsive and at times seemingly ungovernable pattern. By turns hilarious, tragic and shocking, the novel progresses towards a climax which both mirrors and transforms, like a work of art, the lives of everyone involved. 249 pp. Plasti protective covering around D/J. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Academic Literature.).

Seller Inventory # 086096

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Temporary Life
• Publisher: Allen Lane, London England
• Publication Date: 1973
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713905050
• ISBN 13: 9780713905052
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Modern First Editions

About this title

Synopsis

After seven plays and four novels, all widely acclaimed, [Storey] now presents a first-person account of certain incidents in the temporary life of Colin Freestone, a one-time professional boxer turned artist. On the occasion of his wife's breakdown, Freestone returns with her to her home town in the north and takes a job in the local art school. Here we meet a whole gallery of startlingly realised teachers and students, presided over by David Storey's most comic creation to date, R. N. 'Skipper' Wilcox, a man who equates food with art, art with the past, and the past with his own idiosyncratic passions and vices. Then there are the Newmans who have arrived, ostensibly, to transform the town: Elizabeth, the wife, on the lookout for pleasure; Rebecca, the daughter, on the lookout for experience; and Neville Newman himself, a city planner, on the lookout, with his strange and menacing gang, for authority and power. Like some gigantic happening, unannounced, unrehearsed - convened perhaps, thought one is never sure, by Freestone himself - these characters, shadowed by the disturbing presence of Freestone's wife, trace out a compulsive and at times seemingly ungovernable pattern. By turns hilarious, tragic and shocking, the novel progresses towards a climax which both mirrors and transforms, like a work of art, the lives of everyone involved.